NHL rejects players' counterproposals

Donald Fehr, left, executive director of the NHL players' association, talks to reporters as he stands in front of players following collective bargaining talks. AP PHOTO

The NHL soundly rejected all counteroffers made from the players' union to its latest proposal, muting optimism for a prompt agreement to end the lockout and preserve an 82-game regular season.

After an hour-long session with the NHLPA's top negotiators on Thursday in Toronto, Commissioner Gary Bettman said he was “to say the least, thoroughly disappointed” with three responses to their 50-50 offer to split revenues and referred to them as a “step backward.”

“None of the three variations of player share that they gave us even began to approach 50-50, either at all or for some long period of time,” Bettman said told reporters outside the union's offices. “It's clear we're not speaking the same language.”

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said that it made three offers that moved toward an even split of league revenues, which soared to a record $3.3 billion last season. All of the proposals were five years as opposed to the league's six-year offer that contained an option for a seventh year.

Two of them would have given the players a fixed amount of revenue based off future growth while the third was a 50-50 share across the board as long as owners honored all player contracts that were agreed to in the previous collective bargaining agreement, which expired Sept. 15.

“This is not a good day,” Fehr said. “It should have been, but it's not.”

Ducks forward Daniel Winnik, who was part of an 18-player contingent, said Bettman's comments “seems odd to a lot of us” particularly in light of the players' third offer.

“I didn't expect him to come back and say, ‘Hey, where do we sign?'” said Winnik, who is part of the NHLPA's negotiating committee. “Maybe I was hoping that this was the framework that we can work off of. It didn't happen.”

In an email to the Register, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said there is “nothing planned at this point” with regard to any more talks in the immediate future before releasing a statement that took issue with Fehr's third proposal.

“The so-called 50-50 deal, plus honoring current contracts proposed by the NHL Players' Association earlier today is being misrepresented,” Daly said. ”It is not a 50-50 deal. It is, most likely a 56- to 57-percent deal in year one and never gets to 50 percent during the proposed five-year term of the agreement.

“The proposal contemplates paying the players approximately $650 million outside of the players' share. In effect, the union is proposing to change the accounting rules to be able to say ‘50-50,' when in reality it is not. The union told us that they had not yet ‘run the numbers.' We did.”

The league took the unusual step of making its latest proposal public on Wednesday after submitting it to Fehr and his group the day before. Bettman had hoped for a deal that could be hammered out in 7-10 days in order to allow time for teams to have a one-week training camp and begin the season Nov. 2.

Two weeks worth of games that have already been canceled would have been worked into the season by having each team play an additional game every five weeks with perhaps any leftover games added on to the end. Now it appears that a full 82-game slate is in jeopardy.

Bettman intimated on Thursday that the NHL's showcase event, the Winter Classic scheduled for Jan. 1 at Michigan Stadium, could be in danger as the league needs to commit money to prepare for the annual outdoor game. Some reports indicate there is strong belief that more games could be canceled, perhaps today.

Ducks forward Bobby Ryan said that the next few days will be “extremely critical” toward the possibility of the two sides finding common ground.

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